If you run more than a couple of self-hosted apps at home — a media server, a network tool, a few Docker containers, maybe a VM or two — you've probably ended up with a browser full of bookmarked tabs, each pointing at a different app on a different port. A homelab dashboard fixes that: it's a single web page that lists everything you're running, shows whether it's actually up, and lets you jump straight into any app with one click. Some go further and show live stats — CPU, memory, which Docker containers are running, what's on your network — so the one page becomes your actual home base instead of a link list you forget to update. Below are seven real, actively maintained tools that do this job, with honest notes on what each one is genuinely good at and where it falls short.
Glance
Who it's for: people who want a fast, YAML-configured homepage that pulls in RSS feeds, Reddit, Hacker News, weather, stocks and Docker container status — without running a database.
Price: free, open source.
Strengths: extremely lightweight (the binary is under 20MB and runs fine on a Raspberry Pi); configuration is a single YAML file with no database to maintain; the community is large and active, with 36,500+ GitHub stars, so there's a wide library of widgets and examples to copy from.
Weaknesses: configuration is YAML-only — there's no visual editor, so you're hand-editing text files to rearrange things; the visual design is more utilitarian than polished competitors like Homepage.
HomeLabInfo
Who it's for: people who want to actually see every device on their home network and every Docker container running across multiple servers, mapped out rather than guessed at.
Price: free, open source.
Strengths: automatic device discovery via DHCP means you don't have to manually register every device; it monitors Docker across multiple host machines in a single interface; the project has recent, active commits.
Weaknesses: the community is still small (roughly 100 GitHub stars), so support and third-party examples are thin; it's less mature and battle-tested than dedicated tools like Portainer or NetBox if you need this for anything mission-critical.
Home Lab Hub
Who it's for: people who want one dashboard tracking hardware, VMs, apps, storage AND network together, with visual maps and documentation built in, rather than juggling separate tools for each.
Price: free, open source.
Strengths: interactive network visualization instead of a flat list; hierarchical documentation built directly into the dashboard; search that works across every tracked entity (hardware, VMs, apps) at once; no licensing cost.
Weaknesses: it's a young project (around 610 GitHub stars) with a correspondingly modest community; there's no official managed hosting option, so you're fully on your own for setup and upkeep.
Nimbus
Who it's for: DevOps-minded homelabbers who want real health checks and Prometheus metrics rather than a static list of links, and who want it running fast.
Price: free and self-hosted under AGPLv3; there's also a managed Nimbus Cloud option at €5/month if you'd rather not host it yourself.
Strengths: deploys via Docker in under 30 seconds with essentially zero configuration; native Prometheus integration for real metrics, not just up/down checks; supports multiple users with real-time health checks; built on a modern stack (Go, Next.js, PostgreSQL).
Weaknesses: its library of integrations is smaller than Homepage, Homarr or Dashy; AGPLv3 is a more restrictive license if you modify it and run a public-facing instance; it's a recent project, so it hasn't been proven at large scale yet.
Homelab Dashboard (ak-rex)
Who it's for: people who want a simple, responsive status page with quick links to each app's web UI — and nothing more complicated than that.
Price: free, Apache-2.0 licensed.
Strengths: the scope is deliberately narrow — status plus quick links, so there's very little to configure or break; the design is responsive on both desktop and mobile; it's free and requires minimal setup.
Weaknesses: there are no widgets, live metrics, or multi-user support — if you want more than a status page and links, look elsewhere; it's a small project (23 GitHub stars) with limited documentation; it has fewer integrations than Homarr or Dashy.
Dash
Who it's for: households or small teams sharing a single homelab where each person wants their own dashboard, their own bookmarks, and controlled access.
Price: free, MIT licensed.
Strengths: real per-user authentication via OAuth2/OIDC, not a shared login; each user gets their own dashboard and personal bookmarks; access control is group-based, so you can limit what different people see; MIT license with no cost.
Weaknesses: it's a very young project (around 6 GitHub stars) with a correspondingly small community; it requires PostgreSQL and an external OIDC provider, which is a heavier setup than most dashboards on this list; overall feature set is more limited than Homarr or Dashy.
Labby
Who it's for: people who want a lightweight dashboard that's still interactive — live widgets for Docker, torrents and media servers — and want to edit the config without SSH-ing in and hand-editing files.
Price: free, MIT licensed.
Strengths: ultra-light deployment — a single Bun process in one container; configuration is editable directly from the web interface, not just a YAML file; widgets update in real time over SSE for things like Docker status, torrents and media servers; free and open source.
Weaknesses: there's no built-in authentication, so you need a reverse proxy in front of it if you're exposing it beyond your LAN; the widget library is smaller than Homarr's; it's a recent project with a still-small community.
Recap: which one, side by side
| Tool | License / price | Deploy method | Standout feature |
|---|---|---|---|
| Glance | Free, open source | Single lightweight binary or Docker, YAML config | Pulls RSS/Reddit/HN/weather/stocks/Docker into one fast page |
| HomeLabInfo | Free, open source | Agents across servers + DHCP discovery | Live map of every device and container on your network |
| Home Lab Hub | Free, open source | Self-hosted | Hardware + VMs + storage + network with visual maps and built-in docs |
| Nimbus | Free (AGPLv3) + €5/mo cloud option | Docker, deploy in under 30s | Real-time health checks and native Prometheus metrics |
| Homelab Dashboard (ak-rex) | Free (Apache-2.0) | Self-hosted, minimal config | Deliberately simple status page and quick links |
| Dash | Free (MIT) | Self-hosted, needs PostgreSQL + OIDC provider | Real per-user OAuth2/OIDC logins with personal bookmarks |
| Labby | Free (MIT) | Single Bun container | In-app config editing with live SSE widgets for Docker/torrents/media |
There's no single right answer here — it depends on what you actually need on that one page. If you want the most established option with the biggest community and widget library, start with Glance. If your goal is genuinely knowing what's on your network and across multiple servers rather than just linking to it, look at HomeLabInfo or Home Lab Hub. If you want real observability with Prometheus metrics and can live with AGPL, Nimbus is the closest thing to production-grade monitoring on this list. If you just want a clean status page with links and nothing to configure, Homelab Dashboard (ak-rex) or Labby get you there fastest. And if multiple people share your homelab and each needs their own logins and bookmarks, Dash is the only one of the seven built for that from the ground up.